I got sooo ticked off last night. I had been working with a color consultant at Valspar to pick a color for my vanity. We emailed Wednesday and I knew she would be sending me the name of the color we discussed last night. While in Lowes my phone died making me unable to check my email, but wait … I have two cell phones. I really only use the second one to take photos and to dial my main phone and for emergencies like this. I had synch turned off for my email and when I turned it on it said my password was wrong. I just changed my password last week and I KNEW the new password so I typed it in. Changing my password is a big deal because I have about 7 email accounts and two facebook accounts that I keep the same password on plus I use the same password for my tablet, my ipod and my work log ins (several of them) so you know I still know it. They keep doing this to me …telling me that my password is invalid and making me change all these passwords. I gave up in the store after several attempts.
When I got home a few hours later and checked my email on my computer I find this email from Google:
Hi Mscountrygirl,
We recently blocked a sign-in attempt to your Google Account
Sign in attempt details
Date & Time: Saturday, January 24, 2015 12:17:08 AM UTC
Location: United States
If this wasn’t you please review your Account Activity page … to see if anything looks suspicious. Whoever tried to sign in to your account knows your password; we recommend that you change it right away.
If this was you switch to an app made by Google s… to access your account or change your settings …so that your account is no longer protected by modern security standards.
Sincerely,
The Google Accounts team
(… indicates deleted stuff in the message)
First of all if you are going to report something important happening at least have the freaking decency to report the right day and time. It was Friday about 7 PM when I tried to log in. And did you see what pissed me off so bad? Whoever tried to sign in to your account knows your password then they go on to say If this was you switch to an app made by Google. I was using the mail app that came with my phone verses the gmail app which I had not downloaded. I did not download it because I want GOOGLE OUT OF MY BUSINESS. Then out of curiosity I scan my email to see if I had gotten this message last week as well. I did. I remember now I was setting up one of my email accounts on my iPod. I don’t like my email coming to every device so I only occasionally set it up on them and when I retrieve my email I delete it off.
I thought about being 99.999% sure I knew the password last week when they said I was not using the right credentials and making me go through the trouble of changing all my passwords. God this made me so mad I didn’t know if I wanted to scream or spit nails. And to add insult to injury I spent nearly an hour trying to find a way to write Google a nasty gram telling them how mad I was, but there is no way to contact them.
I guess this would be a preventative to all those people out there who spy on their loved ones by occasionally checking their email and all those thieves out there looking to steal someone’s identity. I do not put anything personal in email, no real names or anything. But yet and still Google knows who I am, where I work, where I live and it can predict on maps where I am going to. Those measures are not to protect us. They are to make sure Google can keep up with who we are and what we are doing and where we are shopping and then selling that information. This is an invasion of privacy in my mind, yet I allow them to do it so I can have free email.
If you have Google set up on your phone go to http://google.com/dashboard on your computer and log into your account and see what Google is collecting about you. I am not sure if it is still turned on by default or not (it used to be) but you need to make sure it is turned off or trust me when I say they know when you shit. I created a new Gmail account with a fake name, a fake phone number, and no alternate email address, which they did not like at all. I left it on my phone for a month to see what they would learn about me and based on my patterns they know where I live, where I work, generally what type of work I do, all the places I shop, how long I stayed in each place and other invasive information. My degree is in Computer Security so I am a little paranoid and I go through a lot of trouble trying to keep my online identity private from my real life. I don’t want everyone I know on my blog nor do I want everyone on my blog knowing who I am in real life (nothing personal lol) but every time I turn around I am getting these Google notices asking me if I know this or that person and they are coming to my blogging email account asking me if I know people I work with, which makes me wonder if they are getting the same notices and reading my blog in stealth mode….stalker mode. whatever you want to call it. I have also seen where readers of my blog have sent me emails and the next thing I know I get a notification from LinkedIn asking me if I know them. OMG!! Is there no privacy left in this world? I put LinkedIn up to search for a job not to have everyone in the freaking cyber-world know everything about me. I feel constantly violated. I try to load as few apps on my phone as possible. I am not one of those people that has to know everything real time so when and if I do install an app and it asks me if I want to sync it to my phone I say NO. It does it anyway. I am not getting off the net but this junk is getting ridiculous and it needs to stop!
I want my privacy back!!
For every thing they have a number by there is an option for you to see what they have on you (manage my information or some other option, it is never really obvious so dig around and be prepared to input your password a zillion times and having trouble getting back to the first page). It was eye opening to see how long I research things and how easily my attention is diverted to other searches but I turned as much of that mess off that I could. You can’t turn it all off, that’s the price of having a free email account. Think of yourself as Google’s money bag.
Google What does Google know about me? and you might be surprised.
Okay enough talking for today…I am off to the store to get supplies for my vanity.
A City Girls Country Dreams 